Search
SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United Kingdom, some doctors are saying the NHS applies a double standard, where pro-Palestinian voices face harsh sanctions, while pro-Israel or Islamophobic posts go unchecked, meanwhile, a Guardian podcast features Professor Laura Murphy who says her research exposing China’s exploitation of Uyghur labour vanished under state pressure, and in India, in the wake of a large explosion near the historic Red Fort in New Delhi which killed at least 12 people and injured many more, major Muslim organizations have expressed deep concern over both the security failures and the media narrative surrounding the incident. Our recommended read of the day is by Faisal Hanif for Hyphen, on recent leadership resignations in the BBC highlight how the broadcaster is only held to account when the criticism comes from the political right rather than the communities it affects. This and more below:
United Kingdom
Muslims revealed BBC bias years ago. No one listened | Recommended Read
For years, Muslims have been telling the BBC that something was deeply wrong with how it reported on us and on the subjects that mattered to us. We were met with silence, deflection or denial. Now, as the broadcaster reels from the resignations of director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness amid criticism from a former external standards adviser over its coverage of Donald Trump, Israel and LGBTQI+ rights, suddenly the question of bias is newsworthy. It seems only when the attack comes from the right that the BBC’s partiality becomes a scandal worth investigating. This moment feels both surreal and predictable. Since 2018, my research at the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) has painstakingly trawled through thousands of broadcast clips, headlines and articles to establish how Muslims, Islam and, more recently, Palestine are framed in British media. We raised concerns about dehumanising language, skewed framing and selective empathy long before the current outrage cycle began. But our critiques were easy to dismiss because they came from a marginalised community rather than from political elites or tabloid editors. read the complete article
NHS Doctors Face Crisis of ‘Institutional Discrimination’ for Speaking Out on Gaza
In August 2024, British-Jordanian emergency medicine expert Dr Nadeem Crowe was suspended from the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, over an anonymous complaint made about his criticism of Israel. Crowe had posted that “the genocide in Gaza was going to go down in Israel and Jewish history” and called Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer – who told BBCR4’s Today programme that Hamas and the UN were causing malnutrition in Gaza, and accused Krishnan Guru-Murthy of “advocating for Hamas” – a “vile scrotum”. Crowe had an unblemished medical record and had worked at the Royal Free’s A&E department for 15 years. He was suspended ahead of an investigation into his X posts about Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Crowe told Novara Media that he was treated more harshly by management than staff implicated in “clinical harm to patients”. He described feeling utter panic and confusion when he was first notified that a complaint had been made against him. “I’m thinking, have I killed somebody?” he said. It took him submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to even find out what the offending posts were. Crowe’s suspension was lifted after he deactivated his X account, but he didn’t feel able to stay in his role. He told Novara Media: “I do not feel that the NHS is a safe employer for any pro-Palestinian or Middle Eastern doctor.” The A&E doctor is now taking his former employer to court for discrimination. The suspension is one of a number of similar cases which leave medics feeling bullied and have attracted the attention of pro-Israel lobby groups. read the complete article
International
After More Than 2 Weeks in ICE Detention, UK Commentator Sami Hamdi Released
A leading Muslim civil rights group in the US applauded Monday as the Trump administration’s agreement to release British pro-Palestinian commentator Sami Hamdi acknowledged that he is not “a danger to the community or to national security,” after he was held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention for more than two weeks. Hamdi’s family and the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been representing the journalist, expressed relief at the news that he had accepted an offer to leave the US voluntarily. As Prem Thakker reported at Zeteo News, two “unelected, far-right, Islamophobic figures,” Laura Loomer and Amy Mekelburg, took credit for “investigating” Hamdi. Mekelburg published a report that called on the US to deport Hamdi and prohibit him from entering the country, claiming he was “training US Muslims in digital agitation, electoral sabotage, and political warfare in alignment with Muslim Brotherhood doctrine.” read the complete article
From London to New York: The moral misunderstanding of Muslims
Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli’s reaction to Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York offers a textbook example of the West’s moral misunderstanding of Muslims. Chikli wasn’t expressing a uniquely Israeli anxiety. His warning – “New York is walking with open eyes into the abyss that London already fell into” – echoes the same far-right rhetoric we heard when Sadiq Khan won the mayoralty of London. Yet nothing collapsed. London preserved its multicultural fabric, embracing nearly every faith. Khan never claimed to represent only the city’s Muslims. The same will happen with Mamdani. New York will not fall into any abyss, just as London didn’t. And Donald Trump’s declaration that any Jewish voter supporting Mamdani is “a fool” will dissolve into toxic dust floating above the American political landscape. Mamdani’s victory – alongside at least 38 other Muslim candidates elected to various state and municipal offices – signals a deeper shift. Muslims are no longer on the margins of American cities; they are shaping them, competing for their highest offices, and redefining civic identity. His boldness and refusal to engage in divisive debates define his role in this transformation. In his victory speech, Mamdani said: “I refuse to apologise for being Muslim, or young, or a democratic socialist.” read the complete article
How China is trying to silence UK academics
Laura Murphy is a professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at Sheffield Hallam University. She investigates how the Chinese government exploits the country’s Uyghur community to mine rare minerals and make consumer goods for the west, something the Chinese state denies. Murphy describes to Helen Pidd how in 2024, strange things began to happen. “I started receiving emails – journalists, other researchers, and companies who relied on our research to help them do due diligence, were writing to me and calling and saying: hey, I noticed that your reports are down.” Murphy outlines to Pidd the process by which her research was cancelled and her reports hidden away, and how Sheffield Hallam explained those decisions at the time. She describes the means by which the Chinese government was putting pressure on the university and the impact of her work. read the complete article
United States
Fighting ‘religious discrimination’ while spreading anti-Muslim hate with former Texas Rep. Nate Schatzline
First, let’s say this: it’s an absolute relief that Christian Nationalist state Rep. Nate Schatzline isn’t seeking another term in the Texas Legislature. However, that relief is counterbalanced by the unfortunate news that this squawking s*ithead has accepted a position with the National Faith Advisory Board, created by televangelist and Trump White House advisor Paula White-Cain to fight alleged discrimination against religious people. Par for the course with Schatzline, just two days after his appointment to a group ostensibly about preventing discrimination against people of faith, he took to his Wake Up Church podcast to unleash a torrent of Islamophobic conspiracy theories. During the podscast, first reported on by Right Wing Watch, Schatzline — a former pastor at Mercy Culture Church — asserted that Islam is ”a death cult” and that Muslims in public office are involved in a shadowy bid to take over the government and enslave Christians. Why? Because “the Muslim false god of Allah commands Muslims to lie,” he asserted. read the complete article
Retired judge condemns SLO County DA’s ‘outrageous’ anti-Muslim reposts | Opinion
I have followed with increasing dismay the recent actions of District Attorney Dan Dow, both in his inappropriate posting on social media, as well as his tepid responses to public criticism. Simply stated, it was outrageous for Mr. Dow to repost a tweet from an anti-Islamic hate organization that regularly publishes anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. This serious misstep was compounded by inexplicably linking the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Zohran Mamdani, the incoming mayor of New York, who was not quite 10 years old at the time of the attacks. Mr. Dow’s judgment is in serious question. In response to mounting criticism, Mr. Dow has said he has strong ties to our Muslim community in San Luis Obispo County and that his Christian faith teaches him “to respect and have genuine love for people regardless of whether they share the same faith.” He further says that he shared the post because he is a U.S. Army veteran who served more than 33 years (four tours overseas) and because he disagrees with the politics of Zohran Mamdani. No rational connection exists between serving in the military and espousing Islamophobia. Mr. Dow is correct that the Christian faith teaches us to have “respect and genuine love for people of all faiths,” however, he fails to recognize the obvious: The dissemination of hatred, racism, and bigotry has no place in Christianity. Respect and genuine love must be lived. From the perspective of serving justice, it is difficult to see how Mr. Dow will be able to maintain the public’s confidence in impartially performing his professional responsibilities toward defendants, victims and witnesses of the Muslim faith, unless he truly has a change of heart and genuinely takes responsibility for his serious mistakes. read the complete article
The Meaning of a Muslim Mayor
Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a Ugandan-born immigrant of Indian descent, raised Shia Muslim in an interfaith household in Morningside Heights. The novelty of his origins has broad appeal. As Zenat Begum, Brooklynite and founder of Bed-Stuy’s coffeehouse and community space Playground, put it, “He is a walking concoction of every New Yorker in one person.” Still, one trait is all too familiar in this city’s political imagination—his Muslimness. Perhaps that is why, in the final weeks of the New York City mayoral race, having exhausted all other tactics, Mamdani’s opponents turned to the tawdriest of anti-Muslim rhetoric. On a radio show, Andrew Cuomo chuckled at the suggestion that Mamdani might cheer for another 9/11. Mayor Eric Adams warned of a surge in “Islamic extremism” if he won. On the debate stage, Curtis Sliwa accused the Democratic nominee of supporting global jihad. Beyond his fellow candidates, US Representative Andy Ogles referred to him as “Little Muhammad” and tweeted footage of the 9/11 attacks under the caption “WAKE UP NEW YORK! Equality Labs, a South Asian Dalit civil rights organization, tracked 1.15 million Islamophobic social media posts about Mamdani that were viewed over 150 billion times between January and October 2025—many of which referred to him as “terrorist” or “jihadist.” If there is one tenuous commonality amongst Muslims I have noticed in the last two years, as genocides of predominantly Muslim populations continue unabated, it is this bored indifference toward Muslim hate, and a preference for humor in the face of absurdity. Shortly after Mamdani won the primaries, the Internet was set ablaze in sarcastic quips by Muslims. One X post joked, “SHARIA LAW IS COMING!!!!!” Upon entering the swanky, high-ceilinged venue, I spotted a mustachioed man at the bar alone. It took me a second to clock that it was Hasan Piker. He spun around and jovially asked, “You want an interview? Eighty thousand people are watching me live on Twitch, so go ahead.” We stood in the hallway under what one of his viewers called “bisexual lighting.” Piker exalted about Mamdani, “I have never been truly represented, and I don’t necessarily care to be demographically represented. I care more about the ideology of a person, the platform. But in Zohran, I got a twofer.” Piker concisely captured the dual appeal of Mamdani for Muslims living in New York full-time. read the complete article
India
New Delhi blast: Muslim organisations in India call for unbiased investigation
In the wake of Monday evening’s blast near the historic Red Fort in New Delhi that killed at least 12 people and injured many more, major Muslim organisations in India have expressed deep concern over both the security failures and the media narrative surrounding the incident. The explosion occurred close to the Red Fort in the crowded Old Delhi quarter of the city, one of India's most well-known landmarks, and the site of the annual prime minister's Independence Day speech. While the precise cause of the blast remains under investigation, initial media reports suggest it “may have been an act of terror”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called the explosion a "conspiracy" and vowed that those responsible will face justice. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) faces accusations of marginalising India’s Muslim population. BJP leaders, including Modi, have for years targeted Muslims to gain the support of the right-wing Hindu voters. While investigations into the New Delhi blast are ongoing, major Muslim organisations have voiced concerns about how a section of the Indian media was blaming Muslims without any evidence. read the complete article